


The Huntress at Sunset

by Chris Boyce (Chirs_Boyce)



Category: Original Work, The Lion King (1994)
Genre: Adventure, Anthropomorphic, Choices, Coming of Age, F/M, POV Third Person Limited, Personal Growth, Romantic Friendship, Running Away, Sidekicks, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chirs_Boyce/pseuds/Chris%20Boyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long after the events of The Lion King, a young lion flees his homeland. Arriving in a land of plenty dominated by the strangely empty Pride Rock, Nengwalamwe thinks he's landed on his paws, but the Pridelands have literally gone to the dogs. When the Pridelands really needs a hero all they get is Nengwalamwe, a scruffy baboon, and mysterious cub...</p><p>This story is complete, and is posted elsewhere, but I've only posted the prologue and first two chapters thus far here; the rest will follow after a fairly major edit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Mountains & A New Vision

_"...in many ways we have come full circle, we are returning to the beginning. The younger ones have good hearts and they will reach where we are in time. They don't yet understand but they will..."_ Anon.

**_The Mountains_ **

Tiny plants clung resolutely rockbound in watery fissures in freeze-thaw fractured stone. Bursting into flower for a few short weeks each year; these pincushions of vibrant colour dotted the steep slopes of the near-barren mountainside above the tree line. This was a land where everything, plant and animal alike, was small, and clung to the ground. Icy blasts tore at everything that dared to put a whisker or a tendril above the rocks. Yet low down amongst the rocks and in the air, there was always moisture. Clouds swirled and clung to the peaks and passes of the mountains; fresh and cool, far away from the stifling oppression of the plains below.

Rugged peaks towered far above, glistening silver-white in the late afternoon sun. This was a shallow col; a hollow in the mountainside; close to one of the lower passes of a long range. Northeast lay the world; southwest lay frozen wastes: nowhere. The pass led to the end of the world; a vast unending void that let nothing escape its frozen claws. It drew in and held onto everything: plant, animal, rock, the air; even day itself. From it came nothing but cold. When it felt it had been ignored for too long, it drew the clouds together, building their venom in frozen gloom, and then sent them sweeping down to the plains below.

The end of the world gave life one moment while taking it back the next. In the void dwelt the souls of all animals and plants. In moments of forgetfulness, or inattention, the end let a few souls escape to be born again. Yet it must always have enough souls: it would, in time, reclaim some unfortunates to redress the balance.

Darkness would soon clothe the mountain, covering all in its emptiness. Yet still the sun shone deep into the col where one tiny, ground-hugging plant grew alone at a break of slope. This was the edge of its world. It had never flowered; it might have done soon had not a callused, cracked animal pad crushed it. The paw trembled minutely; it's almost white filaments of fur, patchy-stained red, shimmered in the breezeless chill of the late day sun.

The paw pressed down firmly. Above, a heavily muscled, chill-trembling foreleg rose. Powerful flesh tightly wrapped around a core of dense bones; skin and fur smoothly enveloping all. Above the paw the fur darkened; growing darker still above the wrist; the colour rich, even and warm. The tense mass of the body was covered by short, hairy fur. At the shoulder and beyond the tufts of dark brown at each elbow, a thick dark grey mass enveloped and hung around the shoulders, neck and chest. Behind stretched the taut, strongly curved, fine-furred, as yet un-scarred body of a young adult male lion. The curve of his delicately, downy-soft underfur rose boldly to his loins. The flesh of his hindquarters was firm, lithe and muscular, covering but not obscuring the strong lines of bone beneath. The shaft of his tail continued the line of his back in a smooth curve to a tip of rich, deep brown that seemed to absorb the light from around it. He embodied the fleeting physical perfection of youth.

Despite his vigour, power and speed, the lion was not at ease. His eyes were wide with a delicate fear. His ears twitched at the faintest of sounds that floated up from the sunset drenched world below. He seemed to hesitate; to linger as if unsure. He sniffed the air, lifting his head to the wind. Ahead and above lay an unknown and feared land of legend and superstition, behind lay a world of pressing danger.

The wind dropped. For a few moments the deathly beauty of the mountain turned a benign face to the daily round of life played out far below. To the grassland animals, the mountains were the end of the world. They formed a barrier so great that any creature that ventured there was sure never to return. The lion, the zebra, the wildebeest and gemsbok, and all the animals of the plains, even the birds that overflew the craggy foothills, knew the two worlds – plains and mountainside - had no common ground.

Only eagles, soaring alone above the lower slopes of the mountains, saw no separation of here from there: the cold mountainside wasteland was all one with the fertile grazing of the rolling hills and the sun-browned savannah grasslands. The eagles were the stewards of the mountains but heeded the calls of their distant king that did not even know that such a place as this, almost half of his kingdom, existed at all.

The mountains kept everything in its control; no matter it were the tiniest plants or the mightiest of beasts. So, perhaps for the first time in his life, the young lion felt small and very afraid. He repeatedly turned his head back and forth with staring eyes. He knew not whether go on towards the unknown or to go back to the familiar but dangerous land below. No, he knew he could not return, too much had happened for that, but the stories and fears of what lay ahead preyed on him.

His ears caught the deep, rolling remnant of the call of another of his kind floating up from below. Its distant echoes, which flowed from rock to rock, carried an urgency that drove a new sense of purpose into him. He turned his head to face ahead and stared determinedly, his choice made. He sprang forward with a surge from his hindquarters and ran on.

He was running, to where and what he did not know, he was just running; running away. Whatever lay behind, lay in the past. A past he was determined to learn from, a past he was determined to leave behind. His cubhood was finally over; he was now a lion, alone and free. He was running into his future, in which all was as yet dark. Lions are no strangers to night and darkness. Most greet them like friends, but this was different: this was unknown.

He ran boldly as the evening gathered all around him. He ran on, leaping from rock to rock. He soon realised that the oncoming night's darkness was deeper than any he had experienced before. It was cold and clinging and drained his strength and will. The farther he went, the more his progress became erratic and halting. He began feeling his way across unfamiliar and unsettlingly unstable ground. Later, in the moments when the depths of the darkness became unbearable, he told himself that he was above all this; he was the master of this land of cold shadows. Yet no matter how many times he thought it, he never quite managed to believe it, and still the mountain closed in upon him and held him down.

The thousands of blue-grey facets of stone glinted and glistened in the exploding confusion of his mind. With each step he faced new, dimly glimpsed terrors. He soon lost all memory of why he was running; running into emptiness. He was running to stay alive, but he knew was running to his death.

He had no idea of how long he ran on into the unyielding bone-chilling cold of the night. The hard stone shards under-paw grew sharper and began to cut into his pads. The endless rock gully grew narrower and steeper. Just as he thought he had at last cleared the final summit, the next rose ahead of him. Cresting each grim ridge his life receded into the darkness, each time he felt he should fall off the edge of the world and into the endless void beyond. The winds tore away his strength and scattered it over the blackness of the mountainside. Many times he stumbled; rising becoming more and more difficult and painful. The biting winds swirled around him, seeking him out, laughing mercilessly at him.

His forepaws dropped off a ridge into blackness. He tumbled forward helplessly, sliding down the abrading rock face. His flank slammed onto a flat, damp, stone surface. Pain overtook his senses and filled his mind. Through the pain he came to realise that all the stories of this endless place were true. He knew he had at last found the emptiness; the void, the end had taken his soul. Then the blackness enveloped him. Lying painfully on his side, he descended into exhausted, dreamless sleep.

**_1\. A New Vision_ **

Nengwalamwe, son of Nengwala, dozed remembering the vivid stories he had heard as a cub: of the forces of the living and the dead; of light and dark. He remembered other times he had lain awake; wondering why in all the stories there was no dawn, nor sunset. In all the stories except one, one that told of the time before the day and night became two, there was dark or light but never both. The time came when, like two quarrelsome brothers, they had to be separated. They could not understand what had happened, so the brothers chased each other’s’ tails forever round and round the world. 

He wondered why death felt so much like life, only colder. He had expected to see other souls, maybe not different animals but certainly other lion, but there were none. Then he remembered; he was in the realm of the darkness: the emptiness in which nothing lived and everything feared, and that he too was not alive. 

As he stared into the blackness, he slowly became aware of a faint but growing deep blue. The chill bit deep into his fur. The darkness began to lift away, drawing in a faint light. He lay still, pondering on how close the light seemed, then, as it grew, it receded, leaving a layer of black below biting blue that then deepened, painting the sky. He shook with fear; not just his head, nor even his mane, but his whole body quivering like a fearful cub. Below the blue the air seemed to redden, turning to brown and then to orange in a continuous band across the sky. There were no stars, no clouds; nothing but the vibrant colours of steadily climbing light. Why was the void filling with the brilliant colours of the dawn sky? Was this his life entering death? 

He lay still and watched the deathly spectacle unfold around him. He was transfixed by its beauty and held down by its terrifying power. He had been the proud son of a powerful father. In life his teeth had been white, his fur smooth and unmarred by wounds, and his mane soft and un-matted. His youth intact, yet coloured by the first experiences of adulthood. Now in death he lay still and waited for the void to envelop and take him. 

Still the light grew. It revealed that the void was not without form: it loomed up all around him in cold stone. Ahead and below lay open flatlands with darker patches. The light grew brighter and the patches formed into high, dense thickets, kopjes and isolated rounded rocks and crags, dusty luggas, lush green uplands and brown-grassed plains. In the middle of them all, like nothing Nengwalamwe had ever seen, rose up a rock mass that dominated everything around it. The light of the dawn sun finally pierced the cold of the night; a new day had begun. This was not the void; this was not death, and ahead lay a land even richer and more varied than the gentle Kolata hills of his cubhood.

Nengwalamwe forced himself to his paws. He had slept on a ledge that extended just a couple of lengths ahead; beyond the ground fell away sharply. He was shaking, no longer with fear, just with cold. His paws ached and his flank throbbed from bruises garnered where he had fallen on to the ledge.

As he looked to the strange but beautiful land far below he felt his strength begin to return, and with it his will to survive. He felt the breeze flooding up from the distant plains flow into his mane. He opened his nostrils to the breeze and drew it in deep. It held promise of all sorts of different prey. It was a heady cocktail of twenty different antelope, zebra, buffalo and many other animals he could not name. In amongst the scents lay faint traces of hyena, wild dog, jackal, leopard, cheetah and myriad birds, but there was no trace, not the slightest sign, of any lion. This was his: a fresh, lush land, his personal kingdom, his very own land. He threw his head back, straightened his neck, and roared powerfully. The sound echoed around him, magnified a hundred-fold by the mountain.

He waited for any reply. When none came he called again. Though the dampness still clung to his fur, the cold was receding, the iciness no longer held its grip so tightly. The air of the dawn lay still, damp and fresh all around him, coating the rocks with a glistening, sparkling sheen. He stepped forward, and bent down to lick the coating from a rock close to the edge. It was the purest, cleanest water he had ever tasted. He dropped down and lapped at the rock. He relished the delicious sensation as the chilled water tingled on his rough tongue.

Nengwalamwe was unused to looking down. He always associated ‘down’ with the earth. Here there was none, just cold, hard, claw-blunting, pad-freezing rock. He moved tentatively along the ledge; teetering on the edge. There seemed to be no obvious route down to the plains below. He could see none of the tracks he was used to following: etched into the grass by generations of lion and prey, indeed there was no grass. The rich plains looked to be frighteningly far away. He stretched his head out over the edge, keeping his forepaws tight in front of his hindpaws, and his tail thrust out straight behind him. Below, the slope lessened. It seemed he might be able to clamber down from ledge to bare slope, bare slope to rock, rock to ledge and then on down the mountainside. He felt unsteady, and thought for a moment before telling himself there was no way back; that there was no past, only the future.

From five or more places in the fissured rock - Nengwalamwe couldn’t count well enough to be sure - burbled tiny, insistent streams of clear, pad-freezing water. The streams slid over the rock, spreading into thin sheets. The icy film rippled around Nengwalamwe’s paws, condensing beyond into runnels. One by one, the runnels joined, gathering into a burbling mountain stream a little below. He watched the stream for a moment, fascinated by its delicate movement. His eyes followed its flow down the mountain, threading its way among the rocks. In places it disappeared from view into gullies, only to reappear a little farther down the mountainside, stronger than before. In the distance it vanished altogether, hidden by a change of slope. Nengwalamwe scanned around and picked up its trace, much bigger now - almost a river - as it disappeared into a green and brown mass that covered the lower slopes of the mountain as his mane covered his shoulders. Beyond the mass, on gentler slopes, it reappeared as a shining ribbon, laid out flat on the plains, heading for the distant horizon in a meandering bends and bows. It passed close to the monolithic pinnacle set deep into the plain.

“Come on Nengwalamwe. It can do it, so you can too. It’s not so hard.” He looked down, and wished he hadn’t. “OK, OK, so it is hard, but I can do it, I can!” He stretched out again. He looked to the horizon. The rock pinnacle that broke its perfect line seemed so far away; he felt he would never reach it. “I can’t do it.” He drew back and sat on the ledge. His near forepaw felt unclean. He lifted it to his muzzle and was about to lick it when he felt a chilling blast of air fall onto his back. He shook involuntarily and rose suddenly, stepping forward instinctively. A second rush of cold air ruffled the knot of thicker fur covering his spine behind his shoulders. He surged forwards off the ledge, leaping down to the rock below. Then turned and leapt a second time to another, then to the bare slope.

For hours he clambered, lurched and slipped down the mountainside from boulder to boulder, always keeping the stream within earshot. The farther he went, the bolder he grew, just as the stream grew stronger as more water joined the flow. He leapt from one boulder to the next, turning each time before launching himself toward the next. Several times he misjudged the leap and fell. He was lucky to escape with no more than bruises, but they hardly mattered. Each time he picked himself up he felt his confidence rise. He was the lion who had escaped the void; he was the one who could not be hurt by mere rocks.

The lower down the mountain he got, the more the slope lessened. The ground changed from bare rock; first became moss-covered then to a thin, bare soil and now to something approximating earth. Nengwalamwe was not sure which he liked least, all felt unfamiliar and insecure and none would hold the steadying dig of his claws.

Throughout the day the plains remained distant, but towards sunset he caught glimpses of the dense green blanket, which seemed to get closer with each leap. He could not quite make out what it was. It seemed to grow out of the mountainside, a rich mass that seemed to flow out of the mountain, unsettling and dangerous. Nengwalamwe felt he should stay clear of it, but as he got closer he realised that there was no way to avoid it. The stream, now over two lengths wide and elbow deep, plunged into it. It stretched out on both banks. Far beyond, he could just make out slow-moving dark blotches in large gently shifting clusters. The movement; unhurried and halting looked familiar, as of the shifting of grazing herds; raised his hunger.

As the slope tailed off he found himself running at full pace across damp, well-compacted soil covered in tight, low grass interspersed with spongy mosses. Here at last was something approaching familiar ground vegetation.

Later still, as he padded to within a few hundred lengths in failing light, he saw at last that the green mass was not a blanket. It was nothing more than trees: the canopy of a thick forest that ended abruptly below him. He was more unsettled by the trees than he had been by the barren, open rock. As a cub back in Kolata he had often played around the sparse acacias that littered the slopes down to the Kolata River. Even the thickets had been open and small, often no more than ten sun-dried, wizened trees in all. Here were far more, and far denser trees than he had ever encountered. To the lion, the forest seemed endless with dangers lurking in its dark depths. He longed for the security of open grasslands, warm and reassuringly familiar. “Anything could hide in there, lurking and stalking. They could wait for days for something to wander past. Am I ‘something’ to them?”

As the light finally faded, Nengwalamwe crossed the tree line into the forest. The forest had looked dangerous enough from the outside, but from within it was terrifying. The trees were not open and spindly as on the plains; they were dense and towering: an overwhelmingly humid, stifling place where the undergrowth crowded round. The trees towered above, straight to the sky; heavy and resinous and covering the ground with fine, yielding leaf-litter. Nengwalamwe moved on slowly; afraid of every sound and every subtle swaying shadow cast from the moon. Sounds filled him, unimaginable unrelenting, sudden and frightening sounds. He could not imagine what kinds of animals make them, nor for all their loudness could he tell from where they came. He froze at every movement of the fallen leaves and branches, waiting to see what horror might burst forth upon him from the undergrowth.

Nengwalamwe could not sleep in the forest: it felt far too dangerous, and now he felt hungry too. He knew that if he slept he would never wake again, but could the forest at least provide him with food? He considered investigating some of the noises, particularly the rustles coming from the undergrowth, in case they came from the hunted rather the hunter.

He came to the edge of a clearing, sniffed, looked around, and then crept forwards. Something moved ahead. It turned, and looked at him with eyes filled with curiosity, as if it had never seen a lion before. Nengwalamwe was convinced that it was crying out to be taken down. He advanced, low to the ground. The animal looked up, and eyed the lion warily. Nengwalamwe froze. The animal stepped forward and, seemingly unconcerned, lowered its head again. Nengwalamwe inched forward, his belly scraping the leaf litter. The animal raised its head again and looked directly at the lion. Its eyes widened suddenly and it sprang away. Nengwalamwe leapt after it, catching it in four strides and knocking it down with an easy flick of a forepaw. “Easy prey,” his father’s voice rumbled in his head, “feeds only cubs.”

* * *

It was almost dawn before Nengwalamwe, son of Nengwala, finally reached the lower edge of the forest. The ground opened out onto a wide treeless expanse of low hills. Exhausted, he walked to a tiny knoll and lay down, not bothering to check for signs of danger. After the bare mountain and the forest, anywhere else seemed as safe as his Kolata homeland. In a few moments he was asleep for the first time since the high mountain pass. This time he was not at all cold, and he knew he was alive.


	2. A Land of Plenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nengwalamwe learns to live alone in a new land, and ends up meeting a new friend.

_**A Land of Plenty** _

Something pulled Nengwalamwe away from uneasy dreams – something about a young, lithe lioness. He blearily opened his eyes.

A small, warm, unthreatening voice spoke to him, “Hey, are you a lion?” He looked to where the voice came, expecting to see some strange and curious creature. He was surprised and by what he did see, especially when it bent down and licked his cheek. “Yeah, sorry. I just had to - you know – make sure. You don’t mind, do you?” The lion lay still for a moment then lifted his head and yawned showing all his teeth. Had he been more awake he might have lashed out at the strange cub who had just licked his… _Cub?_ His thoughts overflowed into words: “A cub! What are you doing here? Who are you?” His mind cleared a little. He leaned his head toward her. “Where are the rest of you?” “What rest of me? Oh.… you mean my pride don’t you?” “Yeah, like I said: the rest of you.” He considered rising and walking around the cub, showing off his size and power. Then he decided not to bother - the cub wasn’t worth the effort. If the cub lived close by, he was more than likely on her father’s territory. That lion was Nengwalamwe’s main concern. If he was alone then Nengwalamwe might do worse than to challenge him and take control of his pride. So he needed to milk the cub for information; to find out as much as possible about the pride’s male, or males, before deciding whether to challenge them or move on. “Where’s your father?”

“My father...” The cub looked sad and alone. “He’s… he’s not here.”

“So, who looks after you?”

“Oh, I get by pretty well. You know I’m older than I look.”

He looked at her carefully. She looked like a ten-month-old cub. She was still not adult, yet not totally dependent; she could not be living alone.

“Come on, you’ve got to have a mother, surely?”

“Oh yeah, ‘course!”

“And aunts?”

“Yeah...Well sorta.”

She sounded evasive, and too trusting for her own good. She had given him a clear picture of a small pride with no males, just right for a young lion like Nengwalamwe - provided the lionesses weren’t too old of course. “So, where do you live?” He half expected her to lead him to them. “Where’s your pride now?”

She flicked her head round in the direction of the far off rock pinnacle. “Over there, stupid!” Between lay plains, wetlands, kopjes, ridges, knolls, thickets and a river. On those plains, some places were darkened with prey; prey of every species Nengwalamwe had ever encountered. The terrain offered rich cover: shoulder high grasses, brush, trees, boulders, rises and gullies. It was a land so rich that lions should have been falling over each other, yet this cub seemed to be saying that her pride was so weak as to be hardly be worth taking.

“What are you doing all the way out here? You know it’s dangerous for cubs to stray onto other prides’ lands? Come on, I’ll take you home.”

“Dangerous? For me?” She laughed; a giggle as if Nengwalamwe had said something really stupid. “What other prides? Why should I worry about any other prides? You’re the first lion I’ve seen for… well, ages and ages…and ages… and ages.”

What was 'ages' to a cub? If she was right about there being no other prides, then her father may have died in some accident or through sickness rather than in a border dispute or challenge. It didn’t occur to Nengwalamwe that he might have simply died of old age. The idea of an old lion was totally alien to him. Lions didn’t grow old, they never grew old, they died suddenly, violently and in the prime of life. He never even thought of himself as ‘older’ than when he was a cub, he was simply a lion and that was all there was to it.

“But Cubbie, this place must be full of lion. Where are all the other prides?”

She shook her head sadly. “Nope, no other prides. None. Not one.”

“NONE? Come on now, don’t mess me about Cubbie, I ain’t come all this way for nothing.”

“Oh no, I’m not messing you.” She began to snivel sadly, “I only wanted to be friends. Can’t we be friends?”

Nengwalamwe looked at her. Thinking back to the mountainside, he knew now what it was like to be alone. He raised a forepaw and rested his pads on her hunched shoulder. He moved his head over to hers. He rubbed his muzzle over her cheek gently. It didn’t matter that she was some other male’s cub; she had an instinct-disarming charm that cried out to be loved.

“I’m sorry; of course we can be friends. Just lay off calling me stupid. Err; do you think I can be friends with your mother too?”

She looked into his eyes blankly then wriggled out from under his paw. She gave him a mischievous look and then dashed off down the rise. Before Nengwalamwe could get up to follow she had disappeared into the grasses.

“What did I say?” he called as the rustling of the grass died down. “Aaah, I’ll find her again. I’ll soon pick up her scent.” He lifted his head and sniffed the air - nothing. He sniffed at the ground - nothing. He sniffed his paw that he had just lain on her shoulder - nothing - nothing except the warm, full richness of the savannah. The intricate blend of scents was just as it had been at the top of the mountain pass: no lion scent at all save his own. The dense sights, mingled sounds and full scents of a savannah morning rose up all around him; none were those of lion.

He looked up, turning his head to the distant rock. He stretched out his forelegs, shaking them gently, his paws splayed out on the ground ahead. He lifted his hindquarters and pulled his spine straight in an all-encompassing stretch. When he had drawn out the last of the stiffness from his limbs he padded his forepaws back toward his body, lifting himself so that he stood upright. He looked to the rock again. “That’s where she went, that’s where I’ve got to go. That’s what I came here for - that’s why I’m here!” He lifted his head, opening his mouth wide and straightening his neck. Against all sense, he roared - a long, loud full roar: “Ready or not, Nengwalamwe’s coming to save you all!” He waited a beat and listened as it slipped back to him off the distant rock, warmed and smoothed by the sun. The great rock though, could wait.

* * *

Nengwalamwe had never lived alone. He had had a few thoughts, as many young adolescents do, of running away and leaving his family far behind. He would be able to live how he liked, do whatever he wanted.

Now he was able to live that dream, it was not at all as he had imagined. His first days and nights in this new land held many excitements and diversions: places to explore; animals to roar at, chase, and hunt; trees and rocks to mark. He didn’t think of having a territory, he wandered wildly. He expected to come across another male’s scent but found none.

Soon, though, he had explored all the places he could find. He had chased, roared at, and hunted, or at least tried, all the different prey animals. He had marked every tree and every crevice of every rock.

He could go where he liked, but he had no particular reason to go anywhere. He could do what he liked, but there was nothing he wanted to do. He could hunt when he liked, and he ate rather less often than he hunted. He could wash when he liked, which was often - his mother and, to his credit, his father, had always impressed upon their growing son that no lioness would ever be interested in a lion who covered her in savannah dust. He could sleep for as long as he liked - he liked that best of all. His mother could no longer nose him awkwardly under his ribs to rouse him.

He began returning to the same spot to sleep. It took on a comforting scent. It was as near as he could get to a place to call ‘home’. Day merged into day, night into night, hunt into hunt, and sleep into sleep as the excitement of his new-found life wore off. He didn’t have anyone to talk to, and at sunset each day he heard no roars of his own kind: no males powerfully proclaiming their ownership of females and territory. He was truly alone.

Nengwalamwe told himself that this mattered little; for the first time in his life he was free. He felt he was especially free of lionesses and all the trouble they had brought upon him. The worst had been Llasani, but she had been only the most recent in a long line of lionesses that Nengwalamwe felt had wronged him. Even his mother, Melakwe, the only lioness who had ever really mattered to him, had shown at the last, that she did not understand him. No matter how independent he felt, there were still times when he thought back to happier days. In all those days there was someone else there with him.

He imagined himself lying at his mother’s side with his chin tucked over her foreleg, while she licked his head and neck, her soft interrupted purring filling his ears. He remembered the sound fading and returning repeatedly as she licked down each swath of his fur. He could forgave her everything just to feel it again. He was even prepared to forgive his father to hear his nightly territorial claims.

As social as lions are, it is eating that is closest to their mind. Though Nengwalamwe wanted to eat, he decreasingly felt inclined to hunt. As such he was a typical lion, and typically a young lion at that. He regarded hunting as someone else’s job. His mother’s in fact, but she wasn’t there.

The time eventually came, however, for Nengwalamwe to find food for himself. Looking around as he woke at sunset, as unsettlingly quiet as the evening before, he noticed the unhurried pace of life around him. Here and there small groups of zebra grazed gently, stopping only to gaze at him for a few seconds before quietly moving on. Around them wildebeest grumbled, grunting across the grass. Birds sat nonchalantly in distant trees, seemingly unworried by anything. Wherever the young lion looked there was prey, prey of every species he had ever imagined – leaping gazelle, snuffling warthog, chirping zebra, twitchy impala, bullish buffalo, dull-boring wildebeest, curve-ridden kudu, all were everywhere. He got up, stretched lazily and walked out, the tip of his tongue poking out slightly between his loosely opened night-black lips. As the lion wandered about, the prey eyed him warily, as if unaccustomed to seeing a lion.

In places, and Nengwalamwe visited many in his wanderings, there was new life, the first faltering steps of newborn wildebeest and zebra: moments so important that failure meant a life over just as it barely began. Once, he idly watched a couple of young male cheetahs, two brothers in coalition probably, stifle the breath of one of the night’s newest born zebra foals. He turned away and left them to their meal.

All this unfolded around the lion as he got to know his ‘kingdom’ as he began to think of it, but a king of what? Life on the rolling plains around him went on as it had for so long before he came. His presence was nothing to the plains, and for the most part to those who lived around him. They knew he wasn’t much of a threat; one of the first lessons all young wildebeest learn is how to tell when a big predator is hunting.

He soon began to think that he had explored most of the land around him. The only place he did not go was the vast sundered rock pinnacle. It seemed too special, somewhere he didn’t deserve to go. In any case there was no need; he had everything he needed right where he was. When prey fell down in front of him begging to be eaten – a male baboon - he felt sure that he had found his very own paradise.

The land was stunningly beautiful, but as his mother had so often told him: ‘Nengwe dear, you can’t eat the scenery.’ Though there was game of every imaginable species, he longed for just one taste of Gemsbok, _just like mom used to catch._ He avoided catching large game; he was just too big and clumsy to catch even a calf. Despite his strength, his size worked against him: he lacked real pace in the chase. He concentrated his few hunting efforts on smaller prey species; often lying in wait for hours for some gazelle or other to stray his way rather than actively stalking. He would sometimes fall asleep in the long grasses only to wake up even more alone than ever; the savannah grazers having quietly moved on while he slept.

Warthogs proved catchable enough, though they fought back, which spoilt the hunt. He never quite felt comfortable eating such filthy animals. They left his lower mane covered in blood, dust and pad-sized clods of dried mud. Large kills were too much trouble and he might forget where he left the part-eaten carcass. He was never able to dine twice on a kill that should have fed him for three or more days. Was it possible that something was stealing his kills? Even well-hidden small kills sometimes moved about.

He had little contact with scavengers and other less fussy links in the savannah food chain. The few hyena he saw seemed very wary of him and usually ran off when approached. He wondered what had turned the bane of all lions into these timid and frightened creatures. At night he often heard the howling and baying of wild dogs but only once did he ever hear the chatter and yelps of a hyena pack.

Life, if dull, was reassuringly secure. His thoughts turned slowly to getting himself a pride with cubs and a few lionesses to look after him.

_Maybe lionesses are not all that bad, he thought. So long as they keep their mouths shut and have a kill waiting for me when I get home._ To Nengwalamwe this was what every lion deserved. His father said it was the lion’s reward for brightening up the lionesses’ otherwise dull lives. If they dared to step a claw out of line then he would put them firmly in their place. Nengwalamwe looked forward more and more to persuading a lioness or two to do what he wanted.

He sometimes thought about what might have happened after he had left his homeland, Kolata. In his mind he could see the cruelly beautiful, or was it beautifully cruel, Llasani cowering down before his father’s stern gaze. She was begging for his forgiveness. If she were very lucky he would let her off with banishment for bringing his son into disrepute. She might even come looking for her Nengwalamwe. She might one day stand in front of him again - a sad, broken little lioness with no friends in the whole world. Nengwalamwe wondered - casually and with little consideration for her - what he would say to her as he denied her of his protection and sent her away: ‘I have no need of your deception and lies. Go now, before I kill you!’

‘But my king, I would do anything if you would only forgive me. Save me! I have nowhere else to go. I have no one to turn to but you.’

‘I cannot be king to you, for you do not respect me, nor do you obey my command. Be gone forever from my sight!’

In Nengwalamwe’s dream the distraught lioness, her coat dusty, dull and ragged, her ribs showing beneath her undernourished, tick-ridden flanks, dropped her head in despair. Then she turned and walked away slowly, crying and snivelling.

_Yeah!_ he congratulated himself. _That’s the way to treat an evil little lioness like her! And if she won’t go I’ll just have to ‘persuade her’ in the only way her type can understand._

* * *

A noise from the grass filtered into Nengwalamwe’s dream and brought him cruelly out of sleep. Before the urge to yawn overtook him, he looked about. Except for a few restless impala down by the distant river’s edge, and the vultures lifting and circling from the tallest acacias, everything was still in the heat of the afternoon.

The tree canopy above him shook. As Nengwalamwe looked up, a brilliantly blue and orange bird flapped noisily into the still air and climbed away. The lion yawned and slumped back on to his forelegs, rolling his head to one side to get more comfortable.

He tried to get back to sleep but the stifling heat made his legs damp and sticky. Through the stillness he thought he heard something… but what exactly was that sound? It was a crinkling, crumpling, like a paw slowly pushing over the stalks of dry grass. He lay awake and listened, with his eyes still closed. For ten or more seconds he heard nothing. Then it came again; a small, delicate sound; a sound from behind him. He rolled over slowly as if still in sleep and tucked his head against his flank, flapping his dark lips as he rubbed his chin on his side.

The sound came again; a little closer. A heart-thumping thought coalesced in his mind: was he being hunted? Leopard? No, it wasn’t their style, and what sort of fool would try to hunt an adult lion? Lioness? There had been no signs of any, and it might not be such a bad thing. He quickly dismissed that ridiculous idea. Hyena? No, no lone hyena would ever bother to creep up on a lion through cover, that was far too complex for them to understand, and anyway, the hyena he’d seen would never have the guts to hunt a lion. So, what could it be?

He prised his right eye open, forming a tiny crack through which he could dimly make out his surroundings. For a moment he saw nothing unexpected, then the horizon moved. It rippled like the back of a lioness on the hunt. Then a terrifying thought struck him: could his father have caught up with him? He opened both eyes, for a second they were blinded by the light of the afternoon. He blinked repeatedly as his eyes adjusted, showing him flashes of a very young lioness. No, not a lioness - a cub, an almost adolescent cub; he was being stalked by – _Oh, it’s that cub again!_

“Oo, you’re awake...”

“What do you think you’re doing? You could have got yourself killed!”

“I wasn’t going to pounce, honest I wasn’t.”

Nengwalamwe stared hard at the cub. She stood just two of her lengths from him, but no matter how hard he tried he could not recall her scent. On days such as this, the air full of the heat of the savannah sun, her scent should have pervaded everything for many lengths around, yet he smelt nothing but the dry warmth of the grasses. Even the fastidious Nengwalamwe could not mask his scent that well. Llasani had certainly been totally unable to mask hers.

“Is that you?” Nengwalamwe blinked against the burning sun.

“Kinda.”

“What’s ‘kinda’ meant to mean? Who are you anyway?”

“I’m…”

Nengwalamwe drew his head forwards a little. The cub looked down at her forepaws.

“Yes? I can’t keep calling you Cubbie, now can I?”

“Well, I guess not… You can call me Yali.”

Nengwalamwe lifted his head a little. “Yali? There you are, that didn’t hurt, did it?”

Yali tilted her head, looking at Nengwalamwe from the tops of her eyes.

“So, young Yali, what are you doing here?”

“I did say we lived down here you know. Welcome to the Pridelands.”

“Welcome to what?”

“The Pridelands. That’s here.”

“Pride Lands - what...” Nengwalamwe grew worried. “…we?” Did this mean there was a pride of lions here? So he was on another pride’s lands after all. What would the males think of him? No, Nengwalamwe knew exactly what they would think of him. Yali was young, not yet a year old. Her father had to be around somewhere, somewhere close. “Does that mean there’s a… a pride here?”

“Well...”

“There is! There’s lions here!” He swished his head to one side in panic. “Do they know about me? That’s stupid - Yali, _you_ know about me, they must do too. I must get away from here, I must go - now!”

“No, don’t go.” Yali’s look grew close to terror and her tail swayed powerfully from side to side. “Please, we need you - we need another lion for the pride.” She was nearly crying. “You can’t go now. You can’t, you belong here.” She appeared a little calmer. “This is your home now.”

Nengwalamwe stood up and shook his mane. He looked searchingly at the young cub standing before him. She seemed genuine enough, even though what little of her scent he could detect revealed nothing about her. Somehow she was already more than just someone to talk to. What was it about her that felled his natural suspicions? How was it that with her he dropped his defences and actually began to care?

He lowered his head and said quietly, “I won’t leave you.” He very gently shook his head. “I really won’t leave you. Now then, what’s frightened you so much? Having trouble with hyenas?”

Yali’s ears pricked up. She almost smiled. “Not recently…, but we do need you. You can protect us.”

“Protect you? From what?” Another thought struck him: he had indeed not seen any lions, but what if there were lions here? Not many, just a few lionesses and cubs, including young Yali. Perhaps they had had a male that had died, killed by some deadly adversary who had left the lionesses too terrified to show themselves. Perhaps they were in hiding, somewhere away from the world. Nengwalamwe’s mind raced as he tried to think of all the places where lions might hide. _Hide? We don’t hide from anything… but lionesses like high rocky places with cracks where they can hide their newborns. It has to be close to water, it has to be safe...._

“Please Nengwe. Don’t leave us now. Please.” As Yali stopped speaking her ears turned to pick up some unexpected ripple in the blanket of background sounds. Nengwalamwe heard nothing except the slight scrunch of her pawfall amongst the grass. She suddenly looked away.

“HEY! My name’s Nengwalamwe, son of…!” But she was gone, running off down the eastern side of the ridge. _What’s she up to now? She looks as though she was being called by her mother!_ He wondered if he should follow her, or if she meant for him to stay where he was. Perhaps she would return later with her mother. He stood still and watched her run off, her form soon merging into the grass. She appeared to be heading for the massive rocks just to the north of the waterhole. _Rocks? Waterhole?_ He considered for a moment. _That’s it. That’s where they are: there on the rocks. That’s where she lives!_

He began to walk up the rise towards the rocks, but soon broke into a gently flowing lope. He could not merge his form into the grass like the cub; he was much too large for that. He followed her trail. It soon became indistinct and he found himself running over knee-high grass. Even though her track had faded, her route was distinct. It ran directly to the foot of a massive outcrop of towering rock: the very rock on the plain that Nengwalamwe had seen that first dawn, high up in the mountains.


	3. Rocks and Hard Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nengwalamwe investigates the great rock, and finds he's not as alone as he thought.

**_Rocks and Hard Places_ **

From the distance the rock seemed a pure pinnacle of solid unforgiving stone, with little promise of cover or shelter. As he approached he skirted west round a great field of boulders, only then beginning to appreciate the true extent of the rock. It was not just a pinnacle but a formation stretching what must have been a hundred lengths north to south. The pinnacle towered over everything, far higher than Nengwalamwe could comprehend, only in the mountains had ever been so close to such a dramatically high face. This must be the rocky home of Yali’s Pride.. _Surely,_ he thought, _there’s got to be no end of caves and ledges up there. Any number of lions could hide in there and never be found._

He drew close to the south-western corner, where the rock rose sheer out of the savannah. There was no way to climb the claw-breaking rock. If Yali had got up onto the rocks, it was certainly not there. Yet there were no tracks, no scent: no sign of any kind that any lions had ever passed this way. There were no breaks in the grass, no pad prints: nothing.

The sun on his hindquarters reminded Nengwalamwe that night was not far away. There was no obvious place to lie up. His hunger was growing, but was not yet strong enough to push him to the effort of catching anything. Nengwalamwe decided to forget about hunting: it could wait for another day. This, the great rock of Yali’s pride, was much more exciting. _No,_ he thought as he sniffed around along the south side, _that’s far too many words: Yali’s pride’s rock. Or perhaps just Pride Rock… yes, that’s it, Priderock._

Further on he thought he smelled the faintest echo of a lion’s scent - not a cub’s, but the much more obvious acrid scent of an adult male. It must have been left by the pride’s last, and now lost male. That meant the lionesses were here, but where? He thought about calling to them, but if they really were hiding then the last thing they would want to hear would be a lion roaring the place down. There would be time enough for that when he was their male, and what a place this would be to roar from!

As the evening crept over the savannah, Nengwalamwe crept length by length round the great curve of the southern end of the rock, always searching for a way up; always searching for any sign of the lionesses he knew must lie above, silently watching him. He risked a few half-hearted chuffs but he gave up when he heard no reply other than the echoes from the hard bulk above him.

By full sunset he was growing weary of this game. The air began to chill noticeably, yet the rock held the heat of the day, warming him. It was almost as if it was reaching out and brushing its head against him. He felt no threat from the rock. He felt it was asking him to join it. This held his attention long enough for him to reach the far side of the rock, its long side. It was much more than a mere kopje, this was a complex series of rocks, caves, boulders and stones of every shape and size dominated by a long promontory that shot out, reaching for the clouds many lengths over the plain. Yet even that was dwarfed by the upward thrust of the tower, a seemingly unassailable mass of solid stone. The promontory looked as if it had fallen away from the tower, collapsing onto the plain below, strewing boulders three or more lengths long on all sides as easily as Nengwalamwe parted the grasses. The great rock tower made him feel small but welcomed. This then, he felt, was surely _his_ great Priderock.

Amongst all the confusion of boulders he could just make out a route, twisting and rough, leading to the flat of the promontory. In seconds he leapt up the winding path, and inside of a minute stood on the flat in front of the tower. It felt almost like having arrived home. Nengwalamwe thought that this would be the perfect place to live. It was as perfect a home for a pride as he had ever imagined and, lionesses or no, it was all his.

Nengwalamwe spent most of the night searching along every path and in every cave of the rock, there was even one that drove right through the outcrop, opening onto a wide ledge invisible from the western savannah below. He had to jump down to enter its shadowy, draughty, echoing space.

Every where were loose rocks and boulders, some piled up, others lying alone. The accumulated earth in some of the rocks’ hollows was sufficient to support small trees, even a miniature acacia: a perfectly foreshortened version of its savannah cousins.

He searched and scented every cave save one that promised to be the biggest and most exciting. It lay at the foot of the tower and probably extended far into its bulk. Nengwalamwe could find no way in, its entrance was blocked by a mass of sharp fallen rocks far heavier than Nengwalamwe could possibly hope to move. _I’m gonna need an elephant to move that lot._ He cast around. _No, a whole herd of them! That other cave had an entrance you can’t see, so maybe there’s another way in. Perhaps they’re in there… somewhere?_

By the first light of morning he was certain he had searched the whole formation, except the great cave. He could guess its size from the echoes, and the cool air that oozed through the rocks, but there was only the faintest hint of lion’s scent. Yet there it was, it was the only scent of any kind, apart from the lion’s down at the base, that he caught all that night. He began to wonder if Yali had not been leading him on some kind of mad cow egret hunt; possibly to hide from him where her mother really lived. Nengwalamwe lay down on the promontory and set to thinking. In a few short minutes, just as the sun’s flaming glow crept above the distant horizon, he fell asleep for the first time in half a day.

Nengwalamwe woke to aching hunger. He licked his off-foreleg and looked about. The rock appeared very different in the full light of day. He could now take it all in in one look. Yet it still appeared never-ending, much as the mountains had done. A sudden, very unfamiliar and unsettling thought struck Nengwalamwe: for a moment he thought about lying on the promontory watching his cubs play in the safety of the rock. _I must be getting very hungry. What a nightmare! I had better find something to eat - fast._ He was pulled away by the unmistakable sounds of the climax of a wild dog hunt drifting up from the plain to the east of the rock. There may not have been any lionesses to share a kill with but that was no reason not to find an easy meal. As his father said, “A good kill is one you don't make for yourself.” Dogs presented no challenge. Many a time Nengwalamwe had been with his father when they had come across a dog kill. There were never more than six dogs. A quick roar and maybe a swipe or two of a forepaw and the meat was theirs. Hyenas could be more difficult, even to the point of being dangerous. They were far more persistent, they bit harder and their chatter was far more annoying, but dogs gave many lions easy pickings.

The dog’s howls grew insistently louder. They must be quite close. Nengwalamwe got up and sniffed the air, but scented nothing. Even so, the young lion, with his now perfectly preened mane bouncing over his shoulders, loped down the rocks and set out over the savannah. The sounds of the dogs appeared to change direction, moving to his left, as he drew away from the rock. Now it was clear that they came from a kopje a little way off but clearly visible over the scattered bushes. He broke into a trot. Dogs are quick eaters, gulping down huge hunks of flesh before dashing off back to their den where they feed the pack mate and the pups. Nengwalamwe knew he had to hurry if he was not to end up with just bones. As he neared the kopje he slowed to a gentle walk and even stopped to check his paws were still clean. _Right, now I’ve got to do it for myself. Pity you ain’t here to see this. There again, if you’ve talked to Llasani then perhaps it’s a good thing you aren’t here._ He shrugged, lifting his shoulders so that they rose well above his spine, even though, or indeed because, there was no one to see. Then he moved on towards the lowest slope of the nearest rock.

A few seconds later he stood motionless on the rounded top of the rock, and looked down onto five wild dogs, their deeply coloured patchwork coats mingling into one as they huddled intently around a partially devoured gazelle. They had not heard his approach.

He moved on, padding down the rock, careful to keep his claws tightly in, to avoid them clicking on the hard rock surface. It afforded him no grip other than what little his pads gained but he wanted to maintain surprise. He decided to risk jumping down the last length to the open savannah floor; still the dogs showed no sign of having heard him. Either they were deaf, or stupid. He closed to a couple of lengths and stood for a moment before rumbling quietly to announce his presence, just as his father had done. He was confident that the dogs would turn round, whimper pathetically and scatter, leaving him to their kill. His father’s voice once more came to his mind, “The weak have only themselves to blame.”

None of the dogs moved in response to his gentle call. _Deaf AND stupid? I can get to like living here._ He growled, loud enough for even deaf dogs to hear. One pricked up his ears and lifted his head from the kill. Nengwalamwe thought on, _Yep, deaf and stupid. Oh, this is gonna be fun!_ The dog turned slowly to face him and stared at him incredulously.

“Bleedin’ell! ‘Ere, Eddie, would you look at this!” The dog swiped at his neighbour’s hindquarters with his forepaw. Eddie was clearly reluctant to stop gulping down the flesh of the gazelle’s shoulder. “Eddie, get your snout out of it mate! This is really somefin’.”

Nengwalamwe began to wonder if these dogs were quite the same as those he had encountered before. He had never seen a wild dog that knew so much as a single word of his language, let alone such an almost comprehensible dialect. The dog’s closest companion, presumably Eddie, belatedly turned round to face the lion. His face was bloody from the kill. He licked his cheek noisily with his long tongue before speaking.

“Well lads, look what George has found. If it ain’t a lion...”

“Nah mate, look at it. He ain’t no norm’l lion. Hey you! Is that a mane or what?”

Nengwalamwe stood still. He felt rather put out.

“Yeah, he’s a Dandy Lion! Did you ever see anythin’ so dolled up as that?” George laughed; something Nengwalamwe had never known any other animal to do. “’Ere darlin’ do yo’wanner see what a real male can do?” George thrust his hindquarters forwards and back repeatedly. Nengwalamwe stared back, at first confused then incensed. Inside, the pressure built up into a roar that should have put the dogs to instant flight. It had quite the opposite effect.

“Is that it pretty kitty? Oi! Charlie and Mary, get him out of here. He’s getting on my wick.” One of the other dogs stopped feeding, and stared ominously at Nengwalamwe. Then it jumped forwards with its ears flat and head down. Another, with a heavily spotted coat, immediately joined it. Nengwalamwe neither knew nor cared which of them was Mary or Charlie, both adopted the typical head down, ears forward posture of dogs on the hunt. Nengwalamwe stood his ground for a moment before realising with some alarm that he was their prey. He hastily backed away. George followed his two pack colleagues with his mouth hanging open and his tongue wagging in time to his panting breath. His ears were pricked and he held his head and tail high and alert.

The lead dog bared its teeth and let out a rasping ‘Grrrrr’. Nengwalamwe watched its teeth shine in the sun. It was only at the last moment, from the corner of his eye, he saw George leap up, wide open mouthed, toward him. Nengwalamwe only just managed to tear his neck out from between George’s jaws before they had had a chance to bite deep. Manes, he had now found, were not just for show, they also hid the outline of a lion’s neck.

As Nengwalamwe drew away he turned and lashed at the dogs with his forepaw. He found no contact. As soon as he touched firm ground he pushed away and leapt forwards, fearing that the dogs would try to grab at his hindquarters and pull him back. The dogs seemed surprised that he was trying to run away and for a moment they faltered, unsure of what to do next.

“Gerr’outo’it! You ain’t nothin’. Do’yer hear?” shouted George. “This is our turf!” George growled again before twisting to his paws, jumping up.

Nengwalamwe ran back up the kopje rock as fast as he could. As he reached the top he heard Eddie’s gruff voice followed by a yelp of pain.

“Sod you! Shift it you lot. Go on! Get off yer arses and get after ‘im!”

Nengwalamwe dare not stop running. As he ran he heard the clicking of the dogs’ claws, scrambling after him. He had got away with barely a scratch, certainly not enough to put off any of the more friendly lionesses he hoped he would soon encounter. He wanted his coat to stay as unblemished, clean and unsullied by battle scars as his father’s had been.

He ran on back to his rock without stopping, knowing that there, he could hide in one of the many caves for as long as it took for the dogs to give up. With wild dogs, that could well have meant the rest of the day. He ran fast, stretching the gap between him and the closest dog to twenty or more lengths before he reached the shadow of the rock. He expected them to follow him up the boulders, snapping at his heels: the inedible in pursuit of the impeccable. He half-expected to use all his strength in leaping up to one of its highest points to escape them, or worse, to turn and strike them down.

However as he reached the flat of the rock he risked a glance to the plain below, only to see the dogs sitting, gasping and panting for breath, well away from the base of the rock. They had not followed him up the boulder path; indeed they looked as if they were fearful of even approaching the great rock.

Nengwalamwe returned a little later; the three dogs were lying down, looking up at him with mournful eyes.

So it went on through the rest of the day; every time Nengwalamwe went to check, there they were: watching, waiting. He began to fear that he would be trapped up on the rock. He felt secure enough on the rock, he even tried to get some sleep, but he could not on such an empty stomach.

The morning turned into afternoon and in turn into evening. He looked around for something to occupy his mind and his claws. He went once more to the pile of rocks at the mouth of the great cave, wondering from where they had come. It was obvious that they were the same rock as the tower itself, hard and smooth, but he could work out very little else. Powerful thoughts grew in him of getting through them and into the cave beyond. If he had thought about it further he would have realised that it was impossible for a lion to move such heavy stones, yet he felt that he must try, and try, and try again.

As the sun fell, he heard distant calls of a wild dog pack, possibly his captors. He left the unyielding rocks for a while and slipped back to see if the dogs were still below. He was surprised to see that they had left, there was no sign of them; he was once more alone. Within minutes he was fast asleep in the open on the flat of the rock. It had been an unusual and exhausting day.


End file.
